Colors of Flowers
by robinthethird
Summary: High school au about Tim being a cutter and Jason being a good influence. Warnings: Drugs and cutting.


The first time Tim cut himself with the razor blade, he accidentally pressed too hard. The flower pattern he was working on was slightly ruined but he could fix it. All he needed to do was ease up on the pressure. If he made too much of a mess, somebody might notice. He rose he was currently using was a simply design and it was small. Tim placed it on his hip where most people would get a tattoo. If done properly, he could pretend it was one too.

It looked good enough. When he was finished with the rose, Tim cleaned the razor blade and put it back in it's special spot in his bathroom. Then he took great care to stop the bleeding and had to use three band-aids to cover it up properly. He worried a little that this one would be more easily seen than the ones on his thighs. Nobody would look there.

Nobody would look anyway.

Nobody ever saw Tim.

He was good at being invisible when he wanted to be.

Now he had enough practice to make smooth, even lines on his skin.

The first time Tim saw his new school, Gotham High, he hated it immediately. Gotham was the worst place his parents could ever have moved them too. He liked Star City. Why couldn't they have stayed there? It was perfect. Nobody noticed him there. Tim would have to start all over again in Gotham. He was a new kid in the middle of the year.

Everyone would notice him.

Tim popped two of his prescribed anxiety pills and took a swallow of water to wash them down. Today was going to be horrible and he couldn't avoid it. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He would get through today and come out invisible. Nobody had to remember him if he didn't make an impression.

That was the key.

Being unremarkable.

Tim looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He was wearing the school uniform of khaki pants, a white polo, and a blue vest. He would look exactly like everyone else. That was at least one good thing about this new school. Everyone would look like everyone else and nobody new would stand out in all the sameness. Thank goodness for that.

He looked at himself more thoroughly, raising his arms above his head to see if any of the designs on his hips would show. They were never referred to as scars. Scars were ugly. Only cutters had scars. Tim had designs. Designs were not ugly. There were flowers. Flowers were things of beauty. Therefore, Tim was beautiful. But no one else could see it.

No one else could know.

Tim still wasn't sure if he liked having Jason around or not. He was thankful that the senior had gotten rid of those bullies for him but he wouldn't go away. He would keep on talking about himself and things that happened at the school. From all of this, Tim had learned that Jason had come from a broken home with divorced parents, he enjoyed art and had paintings all around the school in various display cases, he swore like a sailor when provoked, and had decided that Tim was his new best friend.

Even though he already had friends in the school's art club. Tim had accidentally on purpose forgotten their names but there were three red heads, a blonde, and a brunette. If Jason insisted upon escorting Tim around the school and inserting him in his group of friends without his consent, he might as well get used to being known as one of the art freaks.

Tim may not practice their approved forms of art, but he liked the sound of being an artist. His body was his canvas.

Since Tim had met Jason, he added two new flower designs in three months. Three months was the longest his family stayed in one city. On his good days, he wished and hoped and dreamed that they could stay here. On his bad days, he added some detailing to his designs. Detailing helped ease the bitter feelings more than making the designs themselves.

Tim had added a tiger lily for Jason on the inside of his right thigh and a sunflower for his new friends in the art club on the inside of his left thigh.

These were his favorites. They had the most details compared to his rose, violet, iris, carnation, and orchid. They helped to make him even more beautiful because they were gifts for his friends that they would never see.

Tim had forgotten to take his pills. He was late for school by ten minutes. His first class teacher was disappointed in him. He had forgotten to pack his lunch. He had forgotten to bring money. He was noticed by everyone. He was not blending in. He was not inisible. Tim did not feel beautiful.

When he made it home from school, Tim immediately headed for his bathroom. He found his razor blade hidden in its special spot and gently held it in the palm of his left hand. He looked at it and felt a little soothed to have it in his hand again. The overwhelming need to use it again ebbed as he picked it up in his right hand.

Tim took a deep breath and started etching a stylized star into his left wrist. It looked something he had seen Jason do except with paint and a real canvas. That's what bothered him the most. Jason and his art club could acutally use paint, pencils, markers, and chalk to make wonderful pieces of art for the whole school to see.

All he could do is make himself bleed flowers and now stars.

But the star was a copy, a fake.

Tim gasped when the blade dug into his write. Blood well up quickly around the the blade sticking out of his skin. He touched the red blood, smearing it around, and just feeling it. This was his paint. His skin was his canvas. He was a fool to think any differently. He was still an artist. He was still beautiful.

Tim felt entirely too calm when he eased the blade out of his wrist and dropped it into the sink. He turned on the cold water and let it wash away the sticky red blood from his arm. He spared a moment to realized the star was ruined and couldn't be fixed.

"How do you know where I live?" Tim asked, frowning at Jason. When he answered the door, he hadn't expected to see anyone he actually knew.

Jason shrugged and gave Tim a lopsided grin. "Lucky guess. Why weren't you in school today?"

Tim rolled his eyes and moved his left arm behind his back. "I didn't feel well."

"Ah." Jason nodded, understanding that age old excuse very well. "What did you do to your wrist?"

Tim blinked in surprise and looked down at Jason's worn sneakers. He should really buy a new pair. "I had a little accident."

"Can I see-"

"No!"

"- it..?" Jason raised an eyebrow and shuffled his feet on the porch. "Can I at least come in?" He cracked a smile shifted his backpack higher on his shoulder.

Tim stepped to the side and opened the door wider. It would be rude not to let him in. He was a...friend after all. "Fine."

Once Jason was inside and the door firmly closed, Jason dropped his bag on the floor, he pushed Tim into the door and grabbed his bandaged wrist. "Are you going to tell me or do I have to look?"

Tim pressed his lips together in a thin white line and narrowed his eyes at Jason. This was none of his business. He had no right to force himself into Tim's life and absolutely no right to take his secret away from him.

"All right. I guess I have to look." Jason pulled off the band-aids one by one until the whole of the ruined star was showing. He gently traced the lines with a finger, quickly recognizing the outline of the star he had made for a class project. Then he came to the deep gash that ruined the pattern. "Tim..."

Tim huffed out a breath and said nothing. He was watching a vase on a table behind Jason. He swallowed a lump in his throat and bit the inside of his lip. He wouldn't let Jason in, wouldn't let him know the secret, would not cry. It had nothing to do with him.

"How long... When did you start?" Jason sounded confused but a glance at his face told Tim that he already knew and was just confirming the information. "I mean I know you have your off days, Tim, we all do, but your my friend. You can tell me."

Tim let out a shaky breath and tugged at his arm. "It's nothing..."

"It's not nothing! I'm worried about you! We all are." Jason put his free hand on Tim's shoulder. "Do you have any more scars?"

"They're not scars!" Tim burst out then sagged into the door. "They're not scars. They're designs. They're beautiful. I didn't expect you- or anyone- to understand that..."

"Will you show me?" Jason's voice was soft and finally, _finally_ let go of Tim's arm.

Tim looked down at his ruined wrist and licked his lips as he thought over the pros and cons of showing Jason his designs. They were never meant for other's eyes and there would always be more cons. Well they're werent any pros to showing Jason the designs. "Only if you promise not to tell."

Jason gave Tim a hard look then nodded. "I promise."

Tim locked the door behind him and pushed off of it. He headed toward the stairs, not waiting to see if Jason would follow him or not. He walked down the hall to his bedroom and crossed it to stand in the middle. When Jason stopped in front of him, and dropped his backpack on the floor beside him, Tim heaved a despairing sigh.

He really didn't have to do this. He could ask Jason to leave and slam the door in his face. He should have done that in the first place. Tim hooked his thumbs into the band of his sweatpants and inches them down passed his hips, revealing the rose carved there.

Jason reached down to trace a finger over this one too but Tim stepped back. "I'm not done."

Jason raised an eyebrow and tried to control the rage he felt at the sight of Tim mutilating himself out of what? Depression? What was wrong that he felt he needed to do this? Why wouldn't he talk about himself? He watched as Tim inched down his sweatpants and hoped the heat in his face didn't show too much. Tim wasn't hard on the eyes at all.

Tim's face was interestingly blank for pulling down his pants in front of an almost stranger. Jason didn't really notice as more intricaly detailed scars in the form of flowers were revealed. He reached out to touch them but brought his hand back to himself, unsure if he should do that or not.

These scars were already healed and had been for some time now. They were all flowers but he only recognized the sunflower and the rose. The sunflower and the flower opposite were the most detailed out of all of Tim's 'designs'. They were almost beautiful but they were also so very wrong. It was too late to take them back now.

"Why did you do this?" Jason looked up from the scarred designs and into Tim's blank face.

"I wanted to."

Jason though over all the possible reason for someone deliberately wanted to cut themselves and came up with a few that could be applied to Tim. "Do you...take any medicine, Tim?'

"Anxiety pills. Depression is a listed side effect but I could never bring myself to care."

Tim spoke with such a bland tone, it took Jason a few seconds to get past his anger to realize that Tim was crying. Was he crying because Jason had forced him to tell his secret or because he actually cared about what he had done now? Now that someone else knew?

Jason knealt down and dug inside his backpack for the packet of markers he stashed in there a few days ago. Maybe he could make this better with a little art. Color in the flowers. Jason guided Tim over to his bed and helped his out of his pants but kept the poor guy in his boxers. He was already upset. No need to make it worse.

Jason sat on the floor between Tim's bare legs and uncapped the yellow marker and started filling in the petals of the sunflower. Tim jumped when the cold ink touched his warm skin. He looked down at Jason, a red flush covering his cheeks. "What are you doing?"

"Making art." Jason smiled up at Tim then continued coloring in the lines of the flowers. He wouldn't think of them as scars.


End file.
